My wife recounted to me a recent news story she had seen about a man in Daytona Beach, FL, who looked out the window and spotted a black bear in the hammock swing in the back yard! Here's a picture of the bear:

That news story and another one the other day about Smokey the Bear turning 70 this year made me think I ought to do a blog post about bears. First, there's a fun, short YouTube video about his birthday, and then I've posted two jokes that have bears in them.

When you tell people, "I'm not happy," do they ask which dwarf you are instead? On St. Patrick's Day do people ask you where your pot of gold is? Do you hate to gain even one pound because it instantly shows everywhere? Do you constantly have to ask random strangers to help you get something off higher shelves in stores? Do people use you as an armrest without asking? When people drop things, do they ask you to pick it up since you're closer to the ground? Do you always end up in the front row in pictures and choirs?

If you have never faced any of those situations, you're probably one of those disgustingly tall or otherwise normal people. 🙂 For a long time I have referred to myself as "short and dumpy." Whenever I say that, I hear everything from hearty laughs to nervous chuckles .... like, is it ok to laugh at what I just said about myself? I come from a family of short people — my French grandma was 4'9", her daughter (my aunt) 4'10", and my dad (Grandma's son) was 5'5". At 5'8" I felt like Gulliver with much of my family in France. My mom's side of the family added little height to the mix — Mom was 5'1" tall (in her younger years).

In my annual physical recently, I learned that I am now 3/4 of an inch shorter than I already was for my whole adult life! Losing some height that I could ill afford to lose and my wife's recently reading the funny thing I've used as my signature line at the end of this post made me decide to do a post about being short. This will give you a glimpse of how we experience life from the altitude at which we fly.

Things you get to / have to hear as a short person:

You're like really short ... to which you reply, "Thanks, I had no idea."

You work at a bank?! Is it a piggy bank?

Well, at least you don't have to worry about door frames and ceiling fans.

Have you ever thought about playing baseball? You'd be perfect for playing shortstop.

Do you ever turn on your television mainly to learn things? ETV has all sorts of great, educational programming, but in our home we try to be careful as we sift through the information and misinformation available there. I would contend that we actually are constantly learning as we watch TV and movies. We are exposed to values and attitudes that, if we thought about them carefully, we would not otherwise give our time to or allow ourselves to be manipulated to embrace.

First as a parent and now as a grandparent watching Bugs Bunny with my grandkids, I have been amazed at how much of the humor in the cartoons I loved as a child went right over my head. But even in those seemingly innocent cartoons, as I have later watched them more critically at times, I have found lessons like dishonesty is all right, unkindness is normal and appropriate, etc. We need to be discerning about what we allow to shape our thinking.

On the lighter side of that, though, today I'm posting some humorous and at times bizarre lessons that we learn from what's portrayed on TV and in movies. I did a post with some other lessons about 3 years ago. If you like the ones in today's post, you can click on the link at the end of the post to see the post from 3 years ago.

What We Can Learn from TV and Movies

A cup of black coffee or a splash of cold water in face is enough to render the most inebriated person stone cold sober in a split second.

A hacker can easily get into the most sensitive computer in the world and guess the secret password in two tries.

All computer hackers are either handicapped or under 18 years old.

All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.

All dogs understand everything a human being is saying but simply cannot impart information as easily, especially in a time of a crisis.

All men are basically perplexed until a wiser female assists in resolving the dilemma with her intuition and natural insights into human nature.

All monitors display 2 inch high letters.

All single women have a cat.

All technology is plug and play — every computer can have any piece of technology attached to it with no problem.

One Sunday a month Becka and I go to a local nursing home to take part in the weekly service that various people from our church hold for the residents. I'm always struck by how many more old women there are than old men. Statics worldwide confirm that, for whatever reason, women do indeed live longer than men. There are all sorts of theories out there, from genetics to levels of risky activities. Whatever the reason(s), in nursing homes and other places where older people are in the majority, there are usually more older women than older men.

Almost seven years ago, I did a post called Why Women Live Longer than Men that featured some funny pictures of men doing some insanely dangerous things in the workplace and in other settings. Several of the pictures showed me driving some work vehicles, and I assure you, I was far safer than everything around me was! Since that post I've come across more pictures that could help explain why men die younger than women do. About two years after that I did a second post called Why Women Live Longer than Men, take 2, with even more pictures that show why that phenomenon is so. Two years ago I did a third installment called Why Women Live Longer than Men, take 3.

One of the most common unsafe practices of us men is the bad usage of ladders. Here are some pictures that are amazing.

In honor of exams ending today here at BJU, following close on the heels of students' course evaluations, I'm posting about a technique that has long been practiced by students and many others in various professions — the art of coming up with creative excuses (reasons? alibis?) for explaining their performance in times of testing. Some of the things below might also appear on students' course evaluations. You teachers out there may recognize some of these.

(With the time crunch of exams, I'm reposting this from 4 years ago. That's my story, and I'm sticking with it!)

What students say when exams roll around...

When they are given an objective test:
"It doesn't let you express yourself."

When they are given an essay test:
"It's so vague. You don't know what's expected."

When they are given many minor tests:
"Why not have a few big ones? This keeps you on edge all the time."

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a little about me…

My name is Rob Loach and I welcome you to my blog. People come here for an "instant vacation." You can learn more about me and about my instant vacations, including why my blog is called "ivman's blague," by visiting the about page, where you can watch my TV interview about my blog. My site is thirteen years old, so check out the tabs at the top of this page, subjects of interest to you in the tag cloud (below), and older blog posts (about 750 of them) not on the home page of the blog. Though I am posting less often than at first, there's still lots of archived humor here for you to enjoy!

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